Marian Opania Receives the Marshal of the Region Film Award
One of Poland’s most distinguished actors received the Pola Negri statuette on September 5 at Rother’s Mills, on the final day of the Bydgoszcz film festival Przeźrocza.
Marian Opania was honored for his “timeless acting performance” in Andrzej Wajda’s film Man of Iron, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1981. In the film, he played Winkiel, a radio journalist broken by the communist system who is assigned to prepare compromising material about an activist from the strike committee at the Gdańsk Shipyard during the August 1980 strikes. Ultimately, however, the reporter rebels against the authorities and sides with the workers.
Opania made his screen debut in 1962, also in a Wajda film, Love at Twenty. In 1969, he played the scout Truchaczek in Neighbors, directed by Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski, a reconstruction of the events of Bydgoszcz’s “Bloody Sunday” in September 1939. The film premiered in September 1969 at the Pomorzanin Cinema in Bydgoszcz.
“Marian Opania has a particularly strong connection with Bydgoszcz. His portrayal of the scout Truchaczek in Neighbors, which is a canonical work in the history of the 20th century, provides an opportunity to reflect on the role of this award and on building the film profile of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region, which we have been working quite successfully to establish for many years,” said Vice-Marshal of the Region Zbigniew Ostrowski while honoring the distinguished actor.
Marian Opania is the 27th recipient of the Marshal of the Region’s Pola Negri Film Award. During a meeting at Rother’s Mills, he spoke to a large audience about, among other things, the Bydgoszcz connections in his acting career and his role in Man of Iron, which was screened at the Przeźrocza festival as part of the Year of Andrzej Wajda. He recalled falling asleep on Wajda’s shoulder during the film’s competition screening at the Cannes Film Festival. Later, at the ceremony where the Palme d’Or was presented – the first in the history of Polish Cinema – he was unable to move because his shoes were too tight, and he eventually returned to the hotel wearing only his socks.
Marian Opania is one of the most distinctive and versatile figures on the Polish stage and screen: a film, television and theater actor, cabaret artist, and performer of actor’s songs. He was born in Puławy in 1943. In 1964, he graduated from the Acting Department of the State Higher School of Theatre in Warsaw. That same year, he played the title role in Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II at Warsaw’s Classic Theatre. Over the years, he has been associated with many of the capital’s theaters, including Studio Theatre, Kwadrat Theatre, Komedia Theatre and Ateneum Theatre, with which he continues to collaborate.
A breakthrough in his career came in 1970, when he received the prestigious Zbigniew Cybulski Award for Best Young Actor for his performances in The Leap, directed by Kazimierz Kutz, and Neighbors, directed by Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski. Today, his credits include dozens of roles in television series and feature films, ranging from dramatic to satirical productions, such as Controlled Conversations and Soccer Poker. For a wide audience, Opania is best known as the beloved Professor Zybert from the popular TVP series For Better and for Worse.
He has received numerous awards for his artistic work, including the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta and the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis. He is an Honorary Citizen of Puławy.
This year, the Marshal of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region’s Pola Negri Film Award has also been presented to Zbigniew Suszyński, Magdalena Czerwińska and Łukasz Simlat.
Dariusz Czołgowski
Department of Promotion
September 7, 2026